To Ere is Human
by Cirece7
Summary: Set after Season 3. Loose ends are tied up and the next level of fate is entered. Rated R for violence and sexuality
1. To Ere is Human

Title: To Ere is Human  
  
Rating: R to NC17  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own, make any money from, nor am I in any way affiliated with the Roswell Series. I am simply molesting its characters.  
  
Summary: This takes place after Season 3. It follows the cannon of the show. I am tying up some loose ends and going to the next level of destiny for our gang. I am also providing info as to the characters in case someone reads this that is not that familiar with the show. This is my version of virtual season 4. This is not a Mary Jane story. This reintroduces a previous character.  
  
To Ere is Human  
  
She could feel her fair skin burning. Some part of her brain registered this fact and filed it away where her brain kept the information such as: The name of the cat the people owned down the street. The brand of cereal that her niece liked, and the pair of socks that she had in the back of her drawer that was purple and had a hole in one of the toes.  
  
It was placed in the inconsequential category, but soon, the burning would be her world, consume her life, and then take it away.  
  
She felt sweat beading on her face. It trickled down the sides of her temple and down her cheek. The yellow, short-sleeved shirt she wore was wet under the armpits and the dampness made a 'V' on her back. Rivets of the salty droplets made wet lines between her breasts. The heat gathered in the sand of the desert and rose up to meet her, while the unrelenting sun in the cloudless sky bore its weight down on her. Wisps of blond hair blew across her face when an occasional heated breeze wandered by.  
  
None of that mattered. Her total focus lay with the smooth cliff that she stood in front of. There was nothing to mark it as being any different from the other cliffs in the area. She just knew that it was. Different. She ran her hands along its contours, feeling the dips and valleys of its topography. There was a desperate hope that her insistent caresses would allow her to find out its secrets.  
  
Once upon a time, it was different. Not in its composition, but in what it held. Or rather, what it hid. The secret it housed was a small one that belonged to the stars. It was called, 'The Granulith', and...it was a spaceship.  
  
"Hey!"  
  
A male voice called out. Quickly she looked over her shoulder and saw two men coming towards her.  
  
She must not be found out. Her program had a response for this scenario. A synaptic type of flowchart quickly went through its files and its options. Capture was not acceptable. After the situation assessed, she would make one of the following choices depending on the likelihood of which one offered the largest degree of success.  
  
1. Run away. 2. Attack, evade, run away. 3. Kill, hide or destroy the evidence, run away. 4. Die.  
  
All but the last option then called for her to return to her original point of origin.  
  
The voice was several yards away. Her car was about 200 yards from her. 'Run Away' was the logical choice. She started sprinting for the blue Honda.  
  
"Stop!"  
  
She risked a glance back. The two men were racing after her. One of them lifted his hand. A blast exploded to the right of her. It blew apart a boulder that she was running past, spraying her with bits of rock. She kept running, trying to increase her pace. The soft sand made it difficult for her Nikes to gain traction. Sweat from her brow began to seep into her eyes. She blinked furiously as her vision blurred. She was unable to even slow down enough to use her hands to wipe her eyes. Instead she pumped her arms faster, her legs screamed as they fought the sand and the heat.  
  
"I said, Stop!"  
  
Her breath came in labored gasps, both from the effort her body was making in trying to escape and the realization another blast was coming. Thinking that it would hit by her right side, she dodged to her left,...and ran right into the blast.  
  
Her body jerked forward. Pain exploded on the left side of her body from the middle of her thigh up across her torso and ended at the left side of her face. Her skin was burnt away, leaving the muscles, veins, tendons and nerve endings blackened and exposed. The left eye had burst and its fluid ran down what was left of her face.  
  
Dying was one of the options that were acceptable to the program. She only prayed it would happen quickly.  
  
"Oh my god, what have you done!" Max was the first one to reach the horror that was left of the young woman. Then came the awful realization that she was still alive.  
  
Michael quickly reached them both. His knees buckled of their own accord when he saw what he had caused. 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2  
  
"I wasn't trying to hit her! She dodged into it!" said Michael. He had to turn away and take a few breaths away from the burnt flesh in front of him. When he turned back, he kept his breaths shallow and through his mouth. It took forced concentration to keep from throwing up.  
  
The blast had come from his hand. It was created by an energy that he was able to build within his body, something that humans were not generally able to do, which made sense, since he was not entirely human.  
  
On another planet, in a different lifetime, he had been a General in the army. In fact, he was Second-in-Command. He held the position of being on the right hand side of the King of Antar.  
  
The King of Antar, who, happened to be Max in this lifetime.  
  
Max was kneeling by the ruined side of the woman. Her empty eye socket faced him. The other desperate blue eye darted wildly about. Her mouth tried to work, but no sound came out. The lips had been burnt away, leaving her teeth fully exposed. Some of the muscle was also gone, leaving that side partly skeletal.  
  
There was still a chance to heal her. Max had gifts, as did those who were like him, but some gifts were more prominent in each individual.  
  
Michael's gifts were under the least control, due in part to his impulsive nature, but they were powerful. As a soldier on Antar, he was in charge of the defense of the planet. In this life, he continued to be on the alert, looking for potential threats. On Earth, he had the misfortune of having a foster father who did little to help him develop a trusting nature. The abusive alcoholic collected his paycheck from the government each month for taking care of Michael, and Michael collected bruises and took care of his welts.  
  
With Max's help, he was finally able to be emancipated by the time he was seventeen.  
  
He was fiercely loyal to those he cared about, but did have a tendency to jump the gun when facing an unknown situation. His course of action was generally to act first and ask questions later. Right now, he was having a hard time looking at his actions.  
  
He had actually been forced to kill before, but then their lives had been at stake. That was not the case here. The girl had been running away from them.  
  
Fuck! he thought. Why did I aim a second blast at her? The first one didn't stop her, so why in the fucking hell did I think a second one would?  
  
He was kneeling by her right side opposite to Max. The eye that remained in the woman played a fearful tennis match between the two men. It didn't seem to be able to settle on which one to be more afraid of. Michael had a fleeting thought that if someone could see all three of them, it would be her that would send them off screaming into the night. Of all the monster movies he had ever seen, he couldn't remember ever seeing anything as terrible as what he was seeing now. And, the knowledge that he was the one who had done this to her, left him sickened.  
  
Isabel should have been the one to be here, not me, thought Michael. She would have thought it through before firing a shot. And even if she had shot and hit her, it wouldn't have caused this much damage.  
  
Isabel was the third member of the alien triad. While she could control the molecular structure of objects as well as the other two could, her true gift ran toward 'Dreamwalking'.  
  
On Antar she had been a princess, sister to the king, as she was sister to Max in this land. She was able to slip into people's minds through their dreams and while she was in their subconscious, she could gain information about their true thoughts or feelings.  
  
However, Isabel was out shopping for some furniture at the apartment complex they were currently residing in with their human companions. Liz, Maria and Kyle.  
  
Max and Michael had come back to the desert to tie up some potential loose ends. Liz had felt that there was something left behind, probably in the desert that could affect them.  
  
Liz, Max's wife, had recently developed precognitive abilities. It was believed to be a side effect from when Max saved her life a few years ago from a stray bullet that was fired during an argument at the 'Crashdown Cafe' where she used to work at her family's restaurant. Though Max had worshiped her from afar before that event happened, it was the start of their relationship and the beginning of other humans knowing about their existence.  
  
At one time they had been forced to bury their collection of alien artifacts in the desert. After Liz's premonition, they began to worry that maybe in their rush, something was overlooked, perhaps something that a curious person that might ask a lot of questions could happen to find.  
  
When they come upon the woman in the desert, running her hands over the rock formation that had previously housed the granilith, Michael had impulsively decided to talk to her.  
  
Normally, they would have both just observed and waited it out, but Liz's premonitions had a way of always coming true. Listening to her had saved their lives in the past. Unfortunately, in this situation, she wasn't able to tell how it would affect them. In cases like that, Michael was always happy to ere on the side of negativity.  
  
He knew something was up when she started running when he called out to her. She had to be either FBI or another alien. If she were an alien, she would understand the blast and stop. If she were FBI, she would assume he was firing at her and stop. Either way, they would get answers to their questions.  
  
Only...she didn't stop. 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3  
  
A noise began to make its way out through her mouth. It was a long, continuous moan that pushed out from her diaphragm. It continued until her breath gave out. She took in another labored breath, and then it began again, over and over.  
  
Michael put his hands over his ears, trying to drown some of the inhuman sound out. But he knew that sound would come back to him in his nightmares. The dark ones that occasionally visited him on restless nights when fears about his ability to keep everyone safe rode him hard. Fears that included what he knew he would have to do to keep his people, and those he loved, protected. There was always a price to be paid.  
  
Michael felt that the price to be paid was to close himself off as much as possible. He was a large framed, stoic individual who felt that he could better do whatever must be done for their protection if he remained in control of himself and his emotions. This was a lot easier for him before his girlfriend, Maria, came into the picture. Where he tended to shut down, she was completely open. He sometimes felt that she was his Achilles heel. He loved her more than he wanted to and would still try to pull back from her at times. It was just that sometimes he felt as if he was losing his equilibrium when she looked at him with those large beautiful hazel eyes. He always knew exactly what she was thinking because she never tried to hide anything. She could be furious with him over some boneheaded move he pulled and he would look down at those luscious lips of hers and he would be lost. She loved him, fought with him and just in general, opened him up in ways that still scared him. Keeping his walls in place tended to be a little more difficult now.  
  
Max's price that he paid was to take total responsibility for his and his groups actions. He was slightly smaller than Michael and his hair was a little darker. What people noticed about him was not something that could easily be pointed out. There was simply a presence about him. He never allowed himself the luxury of closing down. If anything, his empathic nature grew stronger. And even through that, he was capable of making decisions that in times past seem to literally break his heart. But this is who he was.  
  
As leader of the group, he would put their safety and needs before his own. He led by example and had their love, loyalty and respect.  
  
As he faced the destroyed human in front of him, he couldn't help the shudder that ran through his body. It was difficult to look at her. The left side of her ruinous face was almost impossible to gaze at. Most of her hair was gone along that side and the ear was melted away.  
  
The clothing on the top portion of her body was gone except for a piece of a yellow shirt sleeve on her right arm still remained. She still had breasts, but the nipples had been burnt away along with the skin.  
  
The blue eye that remained watched Max as he gently placed his right hand on her left arm and held his left hand approximately one inch over her left thigh were the damage began. There was fear in that eye, but also acceptance. She knew she was going to die. She hoped what she was seeing in his eyes was mercy, and that he was going to make it quick.  
  
The damage was extensive. He wasn't even sure if he was going to be able to heal her. If he was going to do anything, he was going to have to make it quick. She was slipping away, and if she died, she might even pull him into death with her.  
  
Mentally, he reached out. They connected. The pain he felt was hers, but now they shared it. It was immediate, overwhelming and for a moment, he was afraid he would pass out, and if he did, it would be all over.  
  
He felt hands grabbing his shoulders. "Max...Max, hang in there!" Michael shook him, helping him stay conscious. "I'm right here Max. I got you."  
  
His focus returned, along with the pain.  
  
*Flash*  
  
Images bombarded him. A blond haired little girl sliding down a slide at school.  
  
*Flash*  
  
The same girl a little older, running in a backyard with a younger girl, (sister, that's her little sister), chasing a German Sheppard puppy, (his name is Tippy, because he had a white tip at the end of his tail), the two girls are throwing a red ball with blue stars on it.  
  
Skin began to reform, developing under his glowing hand, moving up her thigh where the damage started. The epidermis layer smoothed over her hip. Repairs to the damaged muscle simultaneously occurred as the new skin formed.  
  
*Flash*  
  
Now images of a girl in her early teens were seen. She's slightly chubby with glasses, being taunted by some boys at a bus stop, another image of her crying in a bathroom stall.  
  
Fresh skin rippled across her abdomen, raising up, covering her breast. Newly formed areolas and nipples topped them as the skin made its descent and began to rise up toward her neck. Her back was also being repaired, as the healing was encircling her body in an upward fashion.  
  
*Flash*  
  
An Image appears of her catching sight of her reflection in the window of a shop while out walking in the city. Tall, slender, blond hair, she is laughing with a tall, dark-haired male. His back is facing the window, can't see his face, there are troll dolls in the shop. There is a sign. A word is recognized. Stockholm!!?  
  
It's working. Thought Michael, she's going to be ok! He felt to his immense relief.  
  
The thing about that, just when you think, 'everything is going to be just fine.' well that goes in the same category of: "At least nothing else can go wrong."  
  
The gods figure you're getting a little cocky, and 'Murphy's Law' kicks in.  
  
A sandstorm stirred up, seemingly out of nowhere. Cutting grains of sand blasted the exposed muscle membranes and nerve endings that had yet to be healed.  
  
As the punishing storm debrided and embedded itself into the raw flesh, the woman, thankfully, lost consciousness.  
  
So, unfortunately, did Max. 


	4. Chapter 4

Category: Action, Adventure and Romance. Also sexual situations down the road. Summary: This is set after Season 3. Loose ends need to be tied up and the Roswell gangs begin their next level of intimacy. (No Mary Jane's here. There are some previous characters that needed taken care of. Disclaimer: Jason Katims owns everything Roswell. I am just taking liberties with its characters. Feedback: It keeps me motivated and lets me know what you think! Please leave feedback! Distribution: I would be flattered if anyone wants to post this story somewhere else, just let me know first okay?  
  
When the winds started up, Michael blocked the couple on the ground with his body. His large shoulders deflected most of the pelting sand.  
  
His eyes stung and watered from the bits of grain that managed to find its way through his clenched eyelids. The whirling waves of particles was over in moments, but seemed to find its way into every orifice he had that wasn't protected by clothing. He spit the granules from his mouth and blew out what he could that found its way up his nose.  
  
Once he was able to force his eyes open, he realized the danger that Max was in.  
  
Max had managed to heal most of the woman, but not enough were she was out of danger. She could still die, and if the two of them were linked, Max could die with her.  
  
Michael grabbed Max up and lifted him off of her body. Even though he held him in his arms, he could still sense their connection. There was an invisible shimmer that ran through both of their bodies.  
  
"Max, wake up, you have to wake up!" he shook Max hard enough to rattle his teeth. Nothing.  
  
"Sorry Max, this is for your own good." Michael drew his hand back. He felt the shock go up his arm and the stinging pain on the back of his hand as he sent it sharply across Max's face.  
  
He shook out his hand after he saw Max's head snap to the side.  
  
Damn, that's gonna hurt tomorrow. Michael thought, while noting with satisfaction that Max was starting to stir.  
  
"Come on Maxwell, rise and shine, you can do this."  
  
Max shook his head as he came fully to. "Did you hit me?" he groaned.  
  
"Yes, yes I did. That would be me." Michael grinned at him.  
  
"You asshole."  
  
"That would be me too." Said Michael, still smiling.  
  
"Fine, lets finish this." Max leaned shakily back towards the woman. He felt like death barely warmed over to medium rare at this point. The pain of the woman's injuries, the torture of feeling sand, dirt and salt rubbed into exposed nerve endings through his empathic healing ability and being weakened by the repairs he had already made to her body, left him feeling nauseas and holding on to consciousness by a thread.  
  
She was a strange vision at this point. Nude, from the waist up, she was every man's fantasy. She had a beautiful sloped, toned abdomen with slightly larger than normal breasts that were full and pert. Her skin tone was a light golden color that looked as if it had been gently kissed by the sun, instead of having been viciously eaten by its fire.  
  
The contrast of its perfection, to that of her face, made it appears as if she were wearing a Halloween mask, or belonged in some late-night grade B movie that was in the genre of Friday the 13th or other gruesome teen-age horror flick.  
  
Max's own face was that of determination. His powerful eyes were set and intent on finishing restoring her. As he resumed the molecular regeneration, the vision changed. Her lips developed in a bow shape. Unblemished skin raised up over strong cheekbones as Max's hand stroked over her face. Most amazing, was the blue orb that filled her eye, mirroring perfectly her other eye.  
  
*Flash*  
  
A final image imprinted in Max's head. The same young man he had seen with her earlier was standing in line with her, buying a ticket. They were going into a museum. A shot of the museums sign was briefly shown - Vasa Museet. The young man turned, smiling, handing the woman her ticket.  
  
"Oh my God!"  
  
Max was jolted out of his healing trance. The finishing touch had just been finalized with the covering of her scalp. Even her hair had returned, having grown back to its original length before he had been shocked out of his connection with her.  
  
He fell backwards and crabwalk on his hands in an effort to get away from her.  
  
"Max, what is it?"  
  
Michael watched in confusion as Max worked on putting distance between him and the woman. He fell to his side, needing to rest for a moment, but his earnest eyes sharply watched her without blinking. His breath was slightly labored has he tried to quickly recuperate his strength. He was afraid that there was a possibility that he was going to need it soon.  
  
"Max, talk to me!"  
  
He knew who the woman was. Tears began to prick at his eyes. Emotions came rushing back to him.  
  
"God damn it Max. What did you see?"  
  
How could he tell him? How could he tell any of his group, knowing the pain it was going to cause? But then, how could he not?  
  
"Alex, I saw Alex." 


	5. Chapter 5

Category: Action, Adventure and Romance. Also sexual situations down the road. Summary: This is set after Season 3. Loose ends need to be tied up and the Roswell gangs begin their next level of intimacy. (No Mary Jane's here. There are some previous characters that needed taken care of. Disclaimer: Jason Katims owns everything Roswell. I am just taking liberties with its characters. Feedback: It keeps me motivated and lets me know what you think! Please leave feedback! Distribution: I would be flattered if anyone wants to post this story somewhere else, just let me know first okay?  
  
"Earth to Liz, Earth to Liz!"  
  
Liz unknowingly smiled at the little joke as the scene before her gradually came back into focus. A small park could be seen from the window where she was gazing out. Carefully spaced trees dotted the manicured lawn that surrounded the park's focal point, a trio of Conquistadors riding off into battle. The medium used for this creation was bronzed metal accented with what was apparently suppose to be recycled trash.  
  
It was undoubtedly the ugliest statue she had ever seen, but something made you have to stare at it, like a car wreak that you might pass by on the road.  
  
After a few minutes of staring at it, Liz would find her mind wandering to important matters.  
  
Matters like her new husband, Max.  
  
Matters like...sex.  
  
At least once or twice a day she had to be shaken out of her reverie by her blessedly tolerant, if slightly amused, best friend, Maria.  
  
Maria's guy, Michael, had left her in a similar dazed state on more than one occasion. The intensity of their lovemaking could still make her weak in the knees when she thought about it. And, Max and Liz seemed to have it even worse.  
  
On the night of Max's and Liz's wedding the group agreed to take a portion of the money they were given to escape with and get a hotel room so the couple could have a 'Honeymoon'. There was some half-hearted protest from the newlyweds, but nobody truly had to twist their arms.  
  
The rest of the group slept in the van, which had been the initial plan until they found a safe place to settle down for awhile. From their vantage point, they could see the window of the room the lucky couple had been given.  
  
Even though the curtains were closed, a faint green glow could be seen through the slit were they did not quite meet. They all wondered if the couple even realized the energy they were generating.  
  
"Hey Chica, is anybody home?"  
  
A guilty smile played with Liz's lips. "Sorry Maria, I sorta stepped out for a bit."  
  
"That's ok girlfriend, did you go anyplace interesting?" Maria asked with a oh-so innocent tone.  
  
The blush that ran up Liz's neck and covered her face pretty much told the story.  
  
"Oh god, Maria!" Liz exclaimed, while she half collapsed with equal parts of exasperation and utter amazement. "Am I always going to be like this? Either wanting to jump his bones the second I see him. Or, when I'm not around him, either thinking about what I want to do with him when I see him or what we did together the last time I saw him!"  
  
She moved away from the window and began to pace the floor, slowly building to an agitated state.  
  
"I feel like I'm one big walking hormone. I mean, we've had to leave our parents, we're on the run from the FBI, we have aliens on our ass, we're suppose to somehow live a semi-normal life and blend in...and the only thing I can think of is how bad I want to get laid by my husband. My brain has shut down and there is only one part of my anatomy that I am thinking with."  
  
Liz stopped in mid-stride and turned with horror-struck eyes to Maria.  
  
"Maria! I'm turning into a guy!"  
  
Maria smiled indulgently, "No Pumpkin, no. I can promise you that's not happening." Her face held a mock concern while stroking and soothing Liz's soft dark hair.  
  
"How do you know?" asked Liz, semi-serious.  
  
"Because," Maria deadpanned, "I would have to leave Michael and fight Max for you." They stared at each other for a moment, then both collapsed into a fit of giggles. They rolled around on the floor of the new apartment that they shared with their mates.  
  
When they had first moved into their new apartment, it had closely resembled Michael's apartment that he had lived in when they were in Roswell. The entire place was only about 1200sq ft. and was decorated in various shades of bachelor brown. The carpet and cabinets were both on the lower end of builder grade material. It was probably the absolute cheapest brand that the developer of the complex was able to find.  
  
The color of the two bedrooms, one bath apartment was disputed among the group. Maria said it was eggshell white. Liz believed it was more of an off white, while Max and Michael insisted that it was white!  
  
Isabel and Kyle, who lived in the apartment right across from them, had very little to say about the color.  
  
Their apartment was identical to Max, Liz, Michael and Maria's apartment. Since it was two bedrooms also, they each had their own room. They were the unofficial platonic couple in the group.  
  
Isabel had not allowed her husband, Jessie, to come with them when they fled from Roswell. She told herself that she loved him too much and he had too much to lose if he followed her.  
  
However, some nights as she lay awake at night, and forced herself to be brutally honest, she had to admit it was because he didn't belong with them. It didn't mean she didn't grieve for him. She did. But not like she had grieved for Alex. The one she had slowly fallen in love with. The one who had been viciously ripped away from her, and left her with a hole in her heart so large she felt like trains could roll through it.  
  
When Jessie came along it helped ease the pain somewhat. And he was a good man. But, sometimes the old song came unbidden to her mind. 'If you can't be with the one you love, love the one your with.'  
  
Guilt, remorse, grief, and having to leave her parents, her friends, her community, it was overwhelming. She was supposed to be so strong. She was the Ice Princess. The one that no one or no thing could truly touch.  
  
She was hanging by a thread.  
  
If it hadn't been for Kyle, she didn't know how she would have gotten this far.  
  
He was the only one that she would let see her cry. She was would not burden Max anymore than what he was already having to go through. And Michael, well, as much as she knew he loved her, hysterical females were simply not his forte.  
  
Maria and Liz were her friends, but it was still hard for her to let down her defenses and ask for help.  
  
Kyle never gave her a choice.  
  
After they had gotten settled into their apartment, Isabel spent the first night trying to quietly cry herself to sleep.  
  
The door to her room opened and with a startled jerk, she sat up in her bed.  
  
Kyle stood in her doorway; He had on lightweight pajamas on that hung on his toned waist with a drawstring. His bare chest loomed large in the soft moonlight. He wasn't as tall as Max or Michael, but years of football and weight training made him seem as if he were larger than either of them.  
  
Isabel was wearing the top to his pajamas. In her haste to pack, she realized she hadn't brought anything to sleep in. Kyle had offered her his top, and she accepted it with a nod of thanks.  
  
He strode across the room and sat down on the bed next to her.  
  
She tried to speak, tried to tell him to leave, but he gathered her in his arms and held her firmly against him.  
  
All of the fight went out of her. More than she even realized, she needed this. She felt his smooth skin beneath her cheek. She felt the comfortable beating of his heart against the side of her face. His arms held her gently but firmly to him. He had a clean scent, having just gotten out of the shower, but even underneath that, she could smell him. A comforting, familiar scent, and more, places that she wouldn't allow herself to go yet, a masculine scent that drew her to tighten her arms around him.  
  
She felt warm, safe and protected. In her safe cocoon, she was no longer able to hold back the racking sobs that shook her body.  
  
Kyle never said a word other than the soft, nonsensical murmurings he whispered while he lightly rocked her as she cried. He knew there was nothing that he could say to take away the pain, to make everything all right: just as nobody could have said anything to him when his mother left him. You just had to work your way through it.  
  
But at times, being held was what you needed. Whether you admitted it or not, as Kyle knew from experience after his mother had left him and the times his father had held him through the night.  
  
Several times after that night, he had gone to her room and held her when she needed him.  
  
'Careful Kyle', he sternly warned himself, 'She just needs a friend.' Though it was getting harder and harder to leave her and go across the short distance to his own empty bed. 


	6. Chapter 6

Category: Action, Adventure and Romance. Also sexual situations down the road. Summary: This is set after Season 3. Loose ends need to be tied up and the Roswell gangs begin their next level of intimacy. (No Mary Jane's here. There are some previous characters that needed taken care of. Disclaimer: Jason Katims owns everything Roswell. I am just taking liberties with its characters. Feedback: It keeps me motivated and lets me know what you think! Please leave feedback! Distribution: I would be flattered if anyone wants to post this story somewhere else, just let me know first okay?  
  
"Alex, I saw Alex!"  
  
Michael just looked at Max, not comprehending what he was saying. Just hearing his name brought the pain back.  
  
Alex had been their friend. Funny, smart, gangly and a bit awkward at times, he was strong were it mattered. He had integrity, loyalty and was passionately protective of his friends. He had an even purer passion for Isabel Evans.  
  
He had been murdered.  
  
Murdered by an alien named Tess.  
  
Tess, whom they had thought was a friend. Who wound up betraying them all. She seduced Max and gave birth to his son. And she had every intention of turning Max, Michael and Isabel over to Kivar, their enemy, once she convinced them to return to their home planet by use of the Granilith.  
  
To obtain information on how to power-up and pilot the Granilith, she had used Alex's intelligence to break the alien code by mind warping him.  
  
She programmed his brain into believing that he had gone to Sweden, that he had visited Stockholm and that he had a girlfriend over there. Tess even took pictures of them together and altered them to appear as if he had been there to complete the picture.  
  
In reality, he was working on a super computer at a University in Los Cruces, New Mexico, forced to develop computer programs to unlock the alien code.  
  
Not long after Alex's return from what he thought was Sweden, his program began to break down. The force of a mind bend of that magnitude took considerable effort. Minute blood vessels began to break. Finally, the program completely broke down. Alex was able to realize what had been done to him and went to confront Tess where she was living which was at Kyle's house.  
  
Tess had used the mind bend again; she couldn't allow him to tell the others what she had been doing. She pushed hard, harder than ever before. This time though, something gave. An artery deep in the cerebrum burst.  
  
And Alex died.  
  
For awhile, Max thought the young woman lying before them had been Alex's murderer. Ironically, he had planned on killing her in a manner that he had just saved her from. He and Liz went to her dorm room and he was just about to send a fiery blast down the vent of the heating duct, when Liz suddenly realized that she was human, and therefore was innocent of killing Alex.  
  
Max and Michael stared at the young woman still lying in the sand in front of them. A pregnant silence stretched out. Her hands remained at her side. She stayed perfectly still, not even trying to cover her breasts. Her wary eyes watching them was the only sign she gave that she was aware of what was going on around her.  
  
Max got up and started to walk slowly towards her. He could still see the terror in her eyes. Her body began to shake.  
  
"It's ok, we're not going to hurt you."  
  
He got about three feet away from her when her body sprang into action. She was up on her feet running, running as if all the demons in Dante's Ninth Level of Hell were at her heels.  
  
Max was close to her, but still weak from the healing. It took him a minute to catch her and bring her down. She fought and struggled beneath him.  
  
While Max tried to restrain her, Michael caught up to where they were.  
  
"Hey, cool it. Stop fighting!"  
  
As soon as she heard Michael speak, the woman stopped all movement and lay perfectly still.  
  
Max could feel the smooth skin he had just healed beneath his hands. His left arm was wrapped around her chest with his hand gripping her right shoulder. His other arm was anchored around her waist. He was holding her tightly, just in case she bolted again. But, she lay submissive beneath him. Her body surrendered to him and whatever decision they made for her.  
  
Max laid in that position, trying to catch his breath while Michael ran up to them.  
  
"Max, you ok?"  
  
Actually he was having trouble even moving. He was utterly and completely drained. He was lying on top of the woman's back on the sand. He knew he was heavy, but he didn't believe he could move if he tried.  
  
All of the fight had gone out of her, but he was glad that Michael was there anyway. He was going to need help to make it to the van, and if the woman switched back into hellcat mode, Michael was going to have to play the next round of tackle.  
  
Michael lifted Max up, realizing quickly that he was going to have to carry him to the van. The only problem was, what was going to keep the girl from bolting as he was helping Max?  
  
The woman still hadn't moved. She continued to lie in the same position that she was in when Michael told her to stop. An idea occurred to him.  
  
With Max still over his shoulder, he leaned down toward the immobile woman.  
  
"Hey, I'm going to help my friend to the car now. I will have to leave your lovely presence for just a few minutes, but I'd like you to wait here for me. Capish?"  
  
A barely distinguishable nod of her head let him know that she was hearing him.  
  
"Cause, if you took off right now, I'd hate to, you know, have to stop you."  
  
He raised his hand as he said that, making sure she didn't misunderstand his message. Until he had answers to his questions, nobody was going anywhere. He wasn't convinced that she was completely innocent of Alex's murder. She may have had some part in it. And if she did, what she just went through was going to be a fucking walk in the park compared to what he would purposely do to her.  
  
He didn't realize the level of fear that he inspired within her even without the threats. Her throat was tight with terror. A choking sound was all that she was able to answer him with to agree to his demand. 


End file.
